


The Whole Object of Life

by yorsminroud



Category: Matilda - Roald Dahl, Matilda the Musical - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7463661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorsminroud/pseuds/yorsminroud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after Miss Honey adopts Matilda, Sergei and his henchmen re-enter their life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole Object of Life

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this musical on Broadway last month and LOVED it! FYI, this story is set solidly in the musical universe, so mild spoilers if you haven't seen it. The plot generally matches that of the book and film but there are some minor differences.
> 
> One of the things I found interesting about the musical was that the narrative focused more heavily on Miss Honey and her traumas than I remember the book doing. Also, at the end, I thought there was going to be a twist where Matilda got adopted by the Russians instead of by Miss Honey. Thus did I end up here, writing Matilda fanfiction seventeen years after reading Matilda. Time truly is a flat circle.

Twisting her hands behind her back, Miss Honey called, “Matilda?”

“Just a minute, Mommy!”

Miss Honey’s heart fluttered, as it always did when Matilda called her Mommy. Still, she rather wished Matilda’s minute would go by a little faster. She eyed the eight burly, black-suited, sunglass-clad figures who had arranged themselves in her living room. The woman posted up next to the picture window had picked up Miss Honey’s father’s antique music box and was examining it the way one might examine a dirty sock. Miss Honey’s eye snagged on the young man nearest the kitchen door, whose black suit was closely fitted to his broad shoulders and trim waist. She wondered where he could possibly be hiding his gun.

Then Matilda came traipsing down the stairs, wearing a white sweater and a pink skirt patterned with fluffy cotton sheep, and her face lit up. “Sergei!”

“Ma-til-da,” rumbled the massive man in front. A broad smile spread across his face. Miss Honey blinked.

Matilda flung herself down the last two stairs and into the giant’s arms. To Miss Honey, she said, “You remember Sergei, don’t you? The head of the Russian Mafia?”

“Oh,” said Miss Honey. She was feeling rather lightheaded.

“He threatened to break my father’s legs the day you adopted me,” Matilda explained.

“Uh... uh-huh.” In fact Miss Honey did remember him, faintly, but that had been a very trying day and Mr. Wormwood’s legs had not been Miss Honey’s primary concern. She had been so horrified at the sight of tiny five-year-old Matilda facing down a seven-foot man with a suitcase and a bat that she had done her best to erase the incident from her memory as soon as it was over.

“Ma-til-da,” said Sergei. “You have gotten so big! Let me look at you!”

Matilda stood back obediently. She was ten years old now and her eyes were brighter than ever, her brilliance tempered by age and Miss Honey’s careful cultivation. Her hair, once an untamed cloud, was now brushed carefully every day by Miss Honey. She had a penchant for brightly colored clothes with animals on them. Miss Honey had tried to get Matilda to wear something more sensible, once bringing home an armload of nice gray skirts and T-shirts and plain blue jeans, but the light had flickered out of Matilda’s eyes as soon as she’d lain eyes on them, and when Miss Honey had asked her what was wrong, she’d said only, “They look like the clothes my parents used to buy.”

Miss Honey had cringed and returned them at the earliest opportunity.

“Well, Ma-til-da,” said Sergei, as Miss Honey stood by and wrung her hands and tried to figure out how to tell a three-hundred-pound Mafia boss to get his hands off her daughter. “How are you? You are finished college now, eh? You are ready to come to work for your old pal Sergei?”

“No, I’m in sixth grade,” Matilda answered. “I spent a week in secondary school after Mommy became headmistress, but Mommy and Doctor Holman agreed that despite my extraordinary intellectual capacity, I was still emotionally and physically a child and would be better off developing with the rest of my age group.”

“Age group!” Sergei roared. “Why, Jenny, this girl is a miracle! You want to oppress her by saddling her with an age group!”

Miss Honey recoiled. “I – I just thought –”

“I’m quite happy, Sergei,” said Matilda placidly. “I have lots of friends, and Crunchem is lovely now that Mommy’s in charge. I will be rather sad to leave. I start secondary school next year, you know.”

“And where will you be going, Ma-til-da?”

“Cambridge,” said Matilda.

“They have a very good day school,” Miss Honey said hastily. “I’m not sending her to university quite yet.”

“University,” scoffed Sergei. “As if our Ma-til-da needs university!”

Miss Honey had to admit that Sergei had a point.

“What are you doing here, Sergei?” Matilda asked. “Not that it isn’t lovely to see you again, but it is a little strange to see you in my living room.”

“Ah. You see, I have come to ask you a favor.”

Miss Honey stiffened.

“You are a very smart girl,” Sergei explained. “You have taught yourself Russian at the age of five! You also are very kind and generous, for example once helping your buffoon of a father even though he is both stupid and rude. And yet you are a tiny, weak-looking little girl. I am trying to negotiate a deal with the Cosa Nostra and I believe you would be the perfect intermediary.”

“What’s the Cosa Nostra?” Miss Honey whispered to no one in particular.

The broad-shouldered young man, who had rolled up his sleeves to reveal marvelous forearms, replied helpfully, “It’s the Sicilian Mafia.”

Miss Honey blanched. “Mr. Bogachyov! I hardly think that is an appropriate request to make of a ten-year-old!”

But Matilda was already saying thoughtfully, “I _have_ been looking to practice my Italian.”

“Matilda!”

“You see?” said Sergei triumphantly. “Let the little girl make her own decisions, Jenny.”

“She is _ten_!”

“But, Sergei,” continued Matilda, “you’d need to tell me more about the deal. I’m afraid I’ll have to refuse if I get the impression you’re trying to cheat someone.”

“Cheat? Cheat! It is Lorenzo Motisi who is the cheat! Motisi begs me for help protecting one of his gambling rings; I oblige in exchange for payment, yes? A man has to eat. Now, Motisi refuses to pay! Motisi claims he never promised me payment! I have Motisi’s contract but what good is it? Do I take it to a court of law? Me, in a court of law? No! I must get the money out of Motisi some other way. Now, I can have my men invade his home in the dead of night, break his fingers and fill his wife and children with bullets. But this is messy. I do not like it. Probably Motisi retaliates by killing _my_ wife and children, and I still do not get paid, and then no one is happy. Alternatively, I can try to talk some sense into Motisi. Eh? But Motisi does not like me. Motisi does not like my men. So, what do I do? Who is to perform the negotiation? And I tell myself, who better to reason with a Sicilian mob boss than a ten-year-old girl?”

Matilda nodded as though she very much saw the sense in this. “It’s not right that Mr. Motisi should refuse to pay you,” she agreed, while Miss Honey looked on in horror. “May I see the contract?”

“Of course.”

As if on cue the woman by the window put down Magnus’s music box and stepped forward smartly with a sheaf of paper the size of Miss Honey’s head. Matilda settled on the lowest step and pulled a pencil and notebook out from behind the banister. She kept pencils and notebooks all over the house these days. “Mommy,” she said absently, as Sergei crouched in front of her like a dog, “did you offer our guests some tea?”

Inside her head, Miss Honey screamed. _TEA?_ _This psychotic criminal plans to use you, a CHILD, as a shield against the Sicilian mafia, and you want me to offer him tea?!?! Go to your room right now, young lady, and as for the rest of you, get out of my house before I call the police!_

“Of course,” she said weakly. “I do apologize.”

She shuffled into the kitchen, every atom in her body primed to leap into the parlor at the first sign of danger, but all she heard as she filled the teakettle were the turning of pages and Sergei’s occasional chuckle. Her hands shook as she arranged her best china on two tea-trays and poured hot water into the cups. When it was done she regarded the trays dolefully. She would have to make two trips.

Behind her, a low voice thrummed, “Let me help you with that.”

Miss Honey jumped and spilled sugar cubes all over the floor.

The sexy mobster with the nice forearms (oh dear, Miss Honey thought) was standing behind her with his hands in his pockets. A slow grin spread across his face. “Sorry,” he said, in a voice that made Miss Honey’s stomach purr. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He bent down to pick up some of the sugar cubes, and Miss Honey gripped the edge of the counter. “I just got bored listening to them talk about that contract. You must be awfully smart to have raised a daughter like that. Dad just thinks she’s the bee’s knees.”

“Oh,” said Miss Honey breathlessly, “I adopted Matilda. I don’t... I mean, she was smart long before I started taking care of her. A genius, really.”

“Wow,” the young man said.He had picked up all the sugar cubes. Now he moved to place them on the counter, except that Miss Honey was still hanging onto the counter for dear life, so the young man had to stretch his arm past her. Miss Honey thought dizzily that she rather liked being caged in like this. She wondered how Matilda was doing. She ought to go and check. “You and your husband adopted her? That’s so funny. She looks just like you.”

“Oh, I’m not – I’m not married.”

“Oh,” said the young man. He grinned again. His teeth were very white.

Miss Honey gulped. “W-would you like to help me carry the tea?”

“Sure.”

Together they carried the tea-trays into the parlor and arranged them on the coffee table. Miss Honey needn’t have worried. Matilda was halfway through the contract, and Sergei had not budged. Miss Honey gripped a cup of tea in shaking hands and lowered herself into an armchair, painfully aware of the young man’s eyes on her. For the first time in years she thought she might like a drink.

* * *

And so Matilda, who had always done as she pleased whether Miss Honey liked it or not and whose decisions had indeed so far proven fruitful, went to Sicily for four days. Miss Honey did not sleep a wink. At last Matilda returned, bearing a large pignolata, a nice sunburn, and Sergei’s eternal gratitude. As punishment for Matilda’s disobedience, Miss Honey reluctantly and not very adamantly grounded her. Matilda spent the first day of her punishment happily rereading Moby Dick. On the second day Miss Honey deprived her of her books. In the afternoon, with a guilty heart, Miss Honey went upstairs to check on her poor daughter, only to find Matilda whittling chess pieces out of a chair leg.

Miss Honey sighed. “I suppose it’s useless for me to try to punish you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see the point,” Matilda admitted.

“You worried me sick, Matilda! You could have been shot, or hanged, or locked in a cold dark room without food or water, or beaten, or tortured, or –”

“You have very dramatic notions of the Mafia, Mommy.”

“The first time I met them they tried to break your father’s legs!”

“Yes, well, he _was_ very rude and very stupid. And besides, it was quite easy to make Sergei see sense; he’s very reasonable, you know. And weren’t they nice when they visited the house this week?”

Miss Honey bit her lip.

“I thought Sergei’s son was particularly nice,” continued Matilda, apparently without any guile whatsoever. “The handsome one. What did you think?”

“I didn’t notice him,” retorted Miss Honey.

Matilda smiled slyly. “He noticed you. He asked Sergei if you were single.”

“Matilda!”

“What?”

Miss Honey wasn’t sure what, so she sputtered for a few minutes and then concluded, “I cannot _date_ a Russian mafia boss’s son.”

“Why not?”

“Why – he – they’re –”

Matilda waited patiently.

“I’m busy,” Miss Honey said. “I’ve got you to look after. And the school.”

“I looked after myself for five years,” said Matilda. Miss Honey’s heart cracked. “I think I can manage long enough for you to go on a date.”

Matilda’s posture was strangely rigid. Suddenly Miss Honey thought of something. “Do you _want_ me to go out with Mr. Bogachyov’s son?”

Matilda, focused hard on her chess piece, shrugged.

Miss Honey’s resolve, which hadn’t been very strong to begin with, wilted. “Oh, dear,” she said to herself. “Matilda,” she began, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say after that. After a moment she went downstairs and spent a little while looking at the tea-tray.

She couldn’t go out with the young Bogachyov. He was too strong, too handsome, too charming, too obviously clever. Matilda didn’t know what she was talking about. She might have been well versed in Russian poetry and advanced calculus, but she was only a child. These were matters for adults. Not for eleven-year-olds, and certainly not for Miss Honey. What idiot would call Jenny Honey an adult?

“Mommy,” said Matilda.

Miss Honey looked up, wiping her eyes. Matilda was standing at the top of the stairs, her brow furrowed. “You’re an adult,” said Matilda.

Miss Honey startled.

“And I do know what I’m talking about.”

Miss Honey resisted the urge to recoil. “I thought you weren’t psychic anymore.”

Matilda considered it. “My powers went away when I didn’t need them anymore,” she said slowly. She looked very hard at the music-box by the picture window, but Miss Honey didn’t know if she was trying to move it or if she was just thinking. Then she shifted her focus abruptly to Miss Honey. “I think you should go out with Viktor Bogachyov.”

Miss Honey opened her mouth to argue. What came out was, “I don’t even have his phone number.”

“Oh, that’s all right. Sergei gave me his personal phone number. In case I needed a favor, you know.”

“He – he – he –”

“So I’ll call him and tell him you want to go to dinner with his son!”

“NO!”

But Matilda had already jumped up and run to the phone in the kitchen. Miss Honey skidded after her. She was truly panic-stricken now: heart thudding, cold sweat, the works. “No, Matilda, please –”

“Hello, Sergei,” Matilda was saying. “Is Viktor home?... Oh, I see. Well, could you ask him to call me back when he returns, please? Thank you. Yes. Oh, it was my pleasure. Yes, you too. Good-bye.” She hung up and turned to Miss Honey, who was gripping the counter for support and could feel the blood draining out of her face. “Viktor’s doing an assassination but he’ll call back when he’s done,” Matilda explained.

Miss Honey sank to the floor.

“I suppose I’ll make dinner. You look rather indisposed.”

Matilda began bustling between the cabinets and the refrigerator. Miss Honey decided that lying down on the linoleum was probably the best course of action, in the short term.

* * *

In the end neither she nor Matilda need have bothered, because Viktor did not call back.

Miss Honey hung around the phone for a week and hated herself every minute of it. Even Matilda, by the end, seemed subdued. In a moment of weakness Miss Honey even asked Matilda if she thought she should call Sergei back, but Matilda shook her head. “Miss Honey, you and I both know how to tell when we’ve been snubbed. But if Sergei needs another favor in the future – well! All I can say is, he’ll have to ask very nicely.”

Briefly Miss Honey was dismayed to find that an eleven-year-old had more confidence than she, a twenty-seven-year-old woman, but in all fairness Matilda had more confidence than nearly everyone.

Time passed. Years, in fact. In secondary school Matilda was pushed one year ahead of her peers, then two. Miss Honey, at the advice of her therapist, swallowed her misgivings and went on a couple of lukewarm dates with lukewarm men, but she found she did not like it much and soon stopped. Bankers and brokers and insurance salesman had nothing to offer her next to the delight of spending time with Matilda and the thrilling, fulfilling work of managing her school.

Matilda grew up. She and Miss Honey settled ever more securely into their life together, a life full of love and stories and learning and kindness. Matilda was accepted into every university to which she applied, and selected Oxford because of its reputation and because it was a little farther from home than Cambridge; and the month before she was to depart, when the house was a whirlwind of boxes and unpacked books and folded clothes, a knock sounded at the door.

It was Sergei Bogachyov.

Miss Honey, who answered the door, allowed her shock to show for only a moment. Then she schooled her face into an expression of cold disdain, which she had been working on with her therapist. “Can I help you?”

“I wish to speak to the child,” rumbled Sergei. He had brought his usual crowd of ten black-suited henchpeople, although they seemed like a slightly different crowd than last time. Miss Honey resisted the urge to crane her neck to see their faces. Anyway she didn’t have to, because at the very back she glimpsed the curve of Viktor’s cheekbone. Her pulse stuttered, but her expression didn’t. She felt very proud of herself. She would have to tell Doctor Kirke.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” she said.

“It must be possible. I require her services.”

_You ought to have thought of that before your son gave me the cold shoulder_ , Miss Honey wanted to say, but somehow that did not seem like a good idea.

From the kitchen, Matilda, her voice deeper and throatier than it had been years ago but just as clear, called, “Is that Sergei?”

Miss Honey paused. She put the door ajar, almost shut, and called back, “How could you know that?”

Matilda appeared in the doorway with a queer look on her face. “I don’t know,” she said. “Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, dear,” said Matilda. “I do hope I’m not getting psychic again. It’s a little exhausting, having to live through everyone else’s traumas.” Miss Honey flinched. “What does Sergei want?”

“Another favor.”

“Hmph.” Matilda returned to the kitchen. “Turn him away.”

Gratified and a little smug, Miss Honey re-opened the door. Sergei had not budged. If anything he looked rather sheepish, with his hands behind his back and his big shoulders sloped forward. “Matilda says she hasn’t got time right now.”

“When will she have time?”

Oh, dear. This was something else Doctor Kirke had berated Miss Honey about. “No. She says no.” As always she felt a little thrill, part guilt and part exhilaration and part pride, when the word left her mouth. “No.”

“But it is important! Six of my best men have been kidnapped. They will be hanged at dawn if Matilda does not help then.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Hanged? What is it with you people?”

“Hanging is very inefficient,” Matilda remarked from the kitchen. “You’d think the captors would at least have the sense to use bullets. Anyway, if Sergei wanted my help so badly, he could have called.”

Miss Honey repeated this.

“I could not,” Sergei said, and now he looked very sheepish indeed. “I – er – wrote the number down wrong.”

Miss Honey didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she replied, though she was not really talking to Sergei, “You could have looked it up in the phone book.”

“No he couldn’t,” Viktor called out. Everyone turned to stare at him. His face did a funny thing that on a less handsome man might have resembled a blush, but his gaze stayed steady. “We tried. There was no Honey listed in the phone book. We tried Wormwood, but it turned out to be the number of Matilda’s biological parents.”

“We hung up immediately, of course,” spat Sergei.

Miss Honey did not know what to say to this. In fact she was working herself up into a temper – of course she was in the phone book! – when Matilda appeared at her side. “They’re right,” she said quietly. “I just checked. We’re still listed under Trunchbull.”

Miss Honey’s insides quivered. Matilda must have noticed something, because she slipped her hand into Miss Honey’s and faced Sergei with new calm. Miss Honey took a deep breath and cast Miss Trunchbull from her mind. She turned to Sergei, too.

“I suppose you’d better come in,” Matilda said.

Sergei bowed his head and he and his henchpeople filed in, occupying exactly the same positions they had last time. Viktor took up his place at his father’s right shoulder. When his father bent down to confer with Matilda, he looked directly at Miss Honey.

All thoughts of cold disdain and the word No flew from Miss Honey’s mind.

She turned and bolted.

She fled up the stairs, into the second-floor powder room, and locked the door. Only when she had sunk onto the closed toilet seat and grasped her own hair did she start to feel a little better. She gazed at the tiny pink tile her mother had selected for this bathroom thirty years ago, and at the matching pink curtain Matilda had picked out last year. Then she got up and splashed cold water on her face and dried off with Matilda’s sheep-shaped towel which Matilda insisted was too childish to keep around but which she stole out of the trash every time Miss Honey tried to toss it.

She took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and opened it to find Viktor leaning against the opposite wall.

Miss Honey yelped.

“Please don’t shut the door again,” Viktor said hurriedly. “I just... I wanted to say hello.”

Miss Honey’s heart pounded. Cold disdain, cold disdain. “Hello.”

Viktor wilted a little. Miss Honey was very pleased with herself. What a lot she would have to tell Doctor Kirke on Monday! “Dad told me you called?”

“Oh, really? And when was that?”

“Um. Like, a couple of years ago?”

“That’s quite a while,” Miss Honey said coldly. “I’m afraid I don’t recall.”

Viktor took a deep breath. “Right. Well, anyway, I had been planning on asking you to dinner when Dad and your kid were running the Metisi negotiation, but Dad ordered me to wait until the negotiation was over, and then I was going to call you back but Dad had gotten your number wrong, and I didn’t want to just show up on your doorstep because that’s, you know, creepy –”

“Really? Because your father keeps doing it.”

“Yes, exactly. It’s creepy. But, anyway. I never got to ask before, so.” Viktor spread his hands. Suddenly he looked less like a weird Russian mobster awkwardly skulking outside her bathroom and much more like the roguish fellow who’d picked up her sugar cubes. “The offer still stands.”

Oh, dear. Miss Honey’s heartbeat began to pick up again. What was she to do? Matilda wanted her to go out with him, and he really did look so awfully nice. He was a little older now, more mature-looking, stronger, maybe more muscular, with a slightly more chiseled jaw and a few lines around his eyes that worked for him, they really did. And she couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t touched her at all, that in fact he was standing far enough back to allow her to go around him if she wanted to. But those other men had been so _dull_ , going out with them had been so uncomfortable it bordered on painful, and just the thought of doing it again was enough to make Miss Honey want to lock herself back in the bathroom. And why should she date a man just because Matilda wanted her to, anyway? Even if he was terribly sexy and apparently very rich and intelligent and respectful of her space? Wasn’t saying no what she’d been working on with Doctor Kirke this whole time?

“No,” Miss Honey blurted out. Then she blushed. It had sounded much ruder out loud than in her head. “I mean, no thank you.”

“It’s quite all right,” said Viktor. “I just had to ask, you know.”

“Of course.”

“Would’ve beat myself up for years if I didn’t ask. More years, I mean. Ha ha.”

“Oh, certainly. I do understand.”

“Right. Well. After you. Unless you’d like me to go first –?”

“Oh, no, that’s fine,” said Miss Honey, flustered. She paraded downstairs with Viktor two paces behind, and even as she tiptoed into the kitchen she caught the edge of Matilda’s disappointed glance. But later, when Matilda and Sergei had worked out a plan and the Russians had left and Matilda and Miss Honey were snuggled up watching television (for both had learned to enjoy the occasional episode of good TV, as long as it was not all-encompassing), Miss Honey said tentatively, “Are you upset with me?”

“About Viktor? Oh, Mom.”

“I’m serious.”

“You can make your own decisions,” said Matilda. “You know what’s best for you, don’t you?”

Sometimes Miss Honey was not sure.

“Well, if you don’t, Doctor Kirke does.”

“I see you’re still psychic.”

“Not much. I don’t want it, and not wanting it seems to block it off somehow. I do hope it goes away.”

“When you were a child you would’ve used that power of yours to lock me and Viktor in a room until you got your way.”

“Well, my way was best in the end, wasn’t it?” This Miss Honey could not deny. But Matilda had gone tense. After a moment Matilda said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For manipulating you,” said Matilda. It burst out of her all at once, as though she’d been waiting to say it for a very long time. Miss Honey was so surprised she pushed Matilda off and looked her full in the face, but Matilda would not return her gaze. The ghostly blue of the television screen flickered against the girl’s pale face. “For deciding how your life ought to be run. Peeping into your past, frightening Trunchbull and all that.”

“But Matilda, you were right!”

“It doesn’t matter. I should have asked you first. What if you had wanted to confront Trunchbull yourself? What if you were happier with the new life you’d built than the one you’d left behind? What if –”

“My dear Matilda.” Miss Honey tugged Matilda back against her side. “You were a child. A wonderful, delightful, miraculous child. You were doing what you thought was right. And it _was_ right, that time.”

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t interfere again without asking you.” Now Matilda buried her face in Miss Honey’s lap. “Not even if my powers _do_ come all the way back.”

“Oh, darling,” said Miss Honey warmly. She turned off the TV. They sat silently in the star-pierced darkness until it was time for bed.

* * *

Miss Honey’s school merged with a boys’ school and a coeducational secondary school, and Miss Honey joined the board of directors while retaining her Headmistress duties. She launched a literacy program for underprivileged children. She found herself being recruited for speaking engagements. When she spoke out in favor of a new educational reform bill, her words were quoted in the _Telegraph_.

And Matilda, that not-so-little girl, that miracle, blossomed. She emerged from Oxford tall and shrewd and unafraid, clutching a double first in one hand and a pack of job offers in the other. While she sorted through them, she moved back in with Miss Honey, and Miss Honey was rather startled to discover that the arrangement was no longer entirely satisfactory for either of them. Matilda was like a plant, and Miss Honey like a pot: they still loved each other, they still matched, but the one no longer fit inside the other.

Miss Honey found herself running errands more frequently, and Matilda spent lots of time reuniting with her school friends. Miss Honey often came home to find Matilda in the sitting room with Lavender or Amanda or Nigel or Bruce. So when she arrived home one day with her arms full of mail and groceries to a trio of unfamiliar cars in the driveway, she wasn’t too concerned about it.

She pushed the door open with her shoulder. Someone on the other side caught it and held it open for her. “Oh, thank you,” said Miss Honey, and stumbled into a room full of black-suited strangers.

No. Two of them weren’t strangers. Two were Sergei and Viktor.

“Ugh,” Miss Honey said disgustedly. “I might have known.”

“Mommy, be nice,” said Matilda, but absently. She wore a furrow of deep concentration. Miss Honey stuck her nose in the air and maneuvered her way into the kitchen to drop off her bags. Then she popped back into the parlor. Sergei was perched on the edge of an ottoman, looking extremely prim. The others were scattered throughout the room, posted up at windows and doorways. Viktor was at the kitchen doorway, next to her. He looked older, but Miss Honey supposed she did too. Briefly she felt self-conscious – had she put on weight? Could he see her wrinkles? – but Viktor didn’t seem to mind, and truth be told he was developing some crow’s feet himself. He nodded to her when he caught her watching him, but not in a rude or awkward way. It was that which gave Miss Honey the courage to lean over and murmur, “What does he want now?”

“He –”

“Is he going to toss her into a pit some people have fallen into? Have her drag them out one by one without so much as a rope?”

“Don’t be stupid. He –”

“Oh, perhaps he’s going to have her escape someone terribly dangerous from prison. Or throw herself in front of a bus. Or –”

“He’s here to offer her a job,” Viktor interrupted.

Miss Honey’s blood ran cold. She forgot Viktor immediately. “Absolutely NOT!”

Everyone turned to stare at her, but Miss Honey was already marching across the room, red-faced, to throw herself between Sergei and her daughter. “Mommy,” Matilda began.

“No! I forbid it. You may be a little miracle but I am still your mother and you will _not_ throw your future away to be a henchwoman for the Russian Mafia! Go to your room this instant!”

“You can’t make me go to my room!” Matilda shouted. “I’m twenty years old!”

“Matilda, you will go to your room right now or I will _make you_.”

Matilda stared. Out of the corner of her eye Miss Honey noticed Viktor starting forward – why, she wasn’t sure – and then falling back.

“Jenny,” Sergei interrupted. But Miss Honey would not be cowed this time. She whirled on him. Enough was enough. “Shut up,” she spat. “I don’t care about your cronies or your guns or your baseball bats. You have broken into my home and manipulated my daughter enough, and you are _not_ going to take her.”

“Jenny, the girl is old enough to make her own decisions.”

“You’ve been saying that about her since she was eleven! You shut up and mind your own business!”

“And I would never make her a henchwoman,” Sergei protested. “Ma-til-da, a common crony? No, no, no! I am offering her a job as my director of conflict resolution.”

“Your WHAT?”

“Conflict resolution, Mommy,” Matilda piped up. Her eyes were still hard at having been sent to her room (and Miss Honey still intended to make her go), but otherwise she was calm. “Nonviolent conflict resolution, he says.”

“Ma-til-da has a proven aptitude for it,” added Sergei.

“He says violence is a waste of assets,” said Matilda. She had a funny look on her face. “He says he’ll fly me all over, with bodyguards and such, to resolve his disagreements without kidnapping or murder.”

“Now, Ma-til-da, you know we don’t like to use that word. But, Jenny. I beg you to let the girl consider. The job comes with a big salary, you know. And what young woman doesn’t like a big salary? Eh?”

“Sergei also has a vast network of contacts,” said Matilda. “Businesspeople. Government officials. Not to mention a massive library.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sergei. “I think Ma-til-da would like our headquarters very much.”

Miss Honey’s pulse began to slow. “...Nonviolent?”

“Of course! What kind of barbarian do you think I am?”

“I’ll tell you exactly what kind,” Miss Honey began hotly, but Matilda placed a hand on her arm.

“Mommy.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to go to your room!”

“Mom. Just... come upstairs with me a moment.”

So Miss Honey, quite unwillingly, went upstairs. Matilda dragged her into her bedroom, shut the door, buried her head in her hands, and then said quite abruptly, “I’m going to take it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Of course I can’t _stop_ you,” said Miss Honey bitterly. “I only don’t understand why out of all the opportunities in the world, you’re going to insist on choosing the one most likely to get you killed.”

“Because there is so much in the world that’s _not right_ ,” Matilda hissed. “What if I refuse Sergei? Then he’ll choose someone who’s not as smart as me. Maybe he’ll throw away the idea of nonviolent resolution entirely. Maybe his whole network of people will go to waste. Think of what I can do with this job, Mom! Forget the money. Forget the fact that Sergei and I are friends. I can _help people_ with this! More people than I could help working for Barclays or doing a PhD!”

Miss Honey quieted.

“I’m taking it,” Matilda said with finality. Miss Honey could only stand and blink and regret all the choices that had led her to this moment, and yet not regret them at all. “I’m going to go work out the contract with Sergei. Please don’t interfere.”

“I won’t,” said Miss Honey in a small voice.

Matilda left.

Miss Honey did not trust herself to go back downstairs, so she sat on Matilda’s little twin bed and stared at a picture of the two of them together, from back when Matilda had just moved in with her. How had that little girl grown into this calm, powerful, unapologetic adult? But then in some ways it was not surprising at all: Matilda had always been self-assured and smart, and she had always fought injustice. But the injustices in a five-year-old’s world were black and white, and could be combated in black and white ways. Injustice in a grown-up’s world was complicated. Matilda had had to become complicated too.

Someone rapped lightly on the doorframe. Miss Honey looked up. She wanted very much to burst into tears. She tried to suppress them, but as it turned out she could not help herself.

“Are you okay?” Viktor asked.

“I _know_ she was going to grow up and do things I don’t like but I just don’t see why it has to be the _Mafia_!”

Miss Honey was sobbing. She buried her face in Matilda’s pillow but she was still intensely aware of Viktor hovering at the threshold. After a few minutes Viktor’s footsteps, soft for someone so heavy and large, padded across the carpet, and then his weight sank onto the mattress next to her and he put a wide warm hand on her heaving back.

* * *

 Matilda took the job.

She left home. For good this time.

On the day before Matilda was to leave for Moscow, Miss Honey swallowed her pride and bought a plane ticket. She printed it out and showed it to Matilda, who was packing. “I want to come with you,” she said lamely. “Get you all set up in your new apartment. And I thought we could ship over some of the paintings in the attic you like so much, the ones Miss Tru– Aunt Agatha boxed up. To remind you of home. Only if you want to, of course.” Too late it occurred to Miss Honey that maybe Matilda didn’t _want_ Miss Honey’s father’s paintings. Maybe she didn’t even want Miss Honey. Maybe she wanted to do everything herself, maybe she was feeling stifled and that was why she was moving to Russia, maybe she didn’t even like Miss Honey anymore –

Matilda stood up and flung her arms around Miss Honey.

“Oh, Matilda,” Miss Honey said. All of a sudden she felt very choked up. “I think you’re going to hug all the air out of me.”

* * *

Miss Honey was not sure she liked Moscow. She was jetlagged and worried when they stepped off the plane, which might have had something to do with it, and the air conditioning in the airport was too dry and brought out goosebumps on her skin. Matilda paused to ask for directions in Russian and ended up carrying out a ten-minute conversation. Miss Honey shifted from foot to foot, clinging to their luggage and feeling uncomfortable and stupid.

Fortunately, Viktor and another henchperson (the same one who had once examined Magnus’s music-box, Miss Honey thought) were waiting at Arrivals to drive them to Matilda’s new apartment. The henchperson heaved Matilda’s luggage into the trunk and then put Matilda in the passenger seat, which left Viktor and Miss Honey to share the back. Miss Honey pressed her face to the window and watched Moscow crawl by. The city seemed simultaneously dystopian and like a fairy tale: beautiful gold towers built hundreds of years ago side-by-side with brand new skyscrapers, dismal wide gray streets and charming cobblestones.

“What do you think?” Viktor asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

Viktor chuckled.

Miss Honey let out a sigh of relief when they walked into Matilda’s apartment, though. It was in a neighborhood that clearly had had loads of money poured into it, and it was big and beautiful. “I told you Dad would take good care of her,” Viktor said, lugging Matilda’s suitcase in. The henchwoman had posted up in the lobby. “I think at this point he loves Matilda more than he loves me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I don’t mind,” Viktor said. In truth he looked like he really did not mind. “She’s much smarter than I am, anyway. Braver, too.”

“She’s smarter and braver than all of us.” It was a bit shameful when Miss Honey thought about it. Of course she could not help being less smart than her daughter, but as for bravery... Matilda was over here in an unfamiliar city trying to change the world by manipulating the Russian Mafia, and Miss Honey could not even work up the nerve to say yes to a date with a hot stranger. Not even a stranger at this point. A hot acquaintance. A hot almost-friend.

From the bedroom, Matilda squealed, “Mommy, look at the _view_!”

“Go on,” Viktor said. He began walking toward the door. “I’ll tell Dad I got her all settled in. I expect he’ll want to take you both to dinner. Do you need anything else before I go?”

“Viktor,” Miss Honey burst out.

Viktor, his hand already on the doorknob, paused.

“Perhaps... perhaps Sergei could just take Matilda to dinner. And perhaps... I could take you.”

Viktor took his hand off the doorknob. He turned around. To Miss Honey’s astonishment, he looked irritated. “You don’t have to,” she said quickly, suddenly aware that she and her daughter were alone in a foreign country with a mobster. “I just thought it might be nice.”

“You don’t have to ask me to dinner just because you feel bad for me.”

“What? I don’t feel bad for you.”

Viktor squinted. “You don’t?”

“You mean because of what you said about your father? Oh, please, Viktor, I’m sure he loves you very much. I know all about parents who don’t love you. Why, the things I could tell you about _my_ father.” Miss Honey knew, deep down, that Magnus had loved her dearly, but she also knew that Magnus had turned a blind eye to Aunt Agatha’s treatment of her. She’d been over it again and again in therapy but the feelings were awfully hard to parse out. She didn’t want to tell Viktor about any of that, though. Certainly she didn’t want to mention Aunt Agatha. She wanted to scrub Aunt Agatha from her mind with acid.

Viktor looked like he wanted to ask for details, but thankfully he didn’t. “Then... why are you...”

“Because I thought it might be nice,” Miss Honey repeated.

“But you said no last time.”

“Yes, well,” said Miss Honey primly. “That was three years ago. People change, you know.”

“That’s true.”

“And frankly,” Miss Honey added in a meeker voice, hoping she wasn’t revealing too much of herself, because this was something she’d never told anyone, not even her therapist, not even Matilda, “I rather wished I’d said yes.”

Viktor’s eyes lit up. “Oh, did you?”

“There’s no need to make a thing about it.”

“I just want to make sure I heard you properly.”

“I can’t be held responsible for what you _heard_.”

Viktor grinned. “Very well, Jenny.” Miss Honey’s stomach flopped over. “I would be honored to allow you to take me to dinner tonight.”

“Oh, thank you so much.”

Viktor bowed so low Miss Honey’s stomach flopped again, and, still grinning, he vanished out the door.

Miss Honey turned around.

Matilda had poked her head out of the bedroom. She was smiling nearly as hard as Viktor had been. “Ooooooooh.”

“Hush, you,” said Miss Honey, blushing. “Where’s this view I’ve heard so much about?”

* * *

That evening Miss Honey spent about three hours getting ready, compared to the fifteen minutes Matilda spent preparing for her dinner with her new boss. Matilda nixed the first two outfits Miss Honey tried on, and then, when Miss Honey protested that she’d only brought five outfits anyway and hadn’t exactly planned for this, spent a full hour mixing and matching Miss Honey’s clothes. She also insisted on picking out Miss Honey’s earrings. They were horrible. Miss Honey put them on anyway.

A car came to fetch Matilda at seven, at which point Miss Honey anxiously waved her off, immediately removed the earrings, and loafed around with her heart in her throat. At seven twenty-five she began to panic. Viktor had been messing with her, surely. This was his payback for her previous refusal. She would be humiliated!

At seven thirty-two she began to seriously consider changing into her pajamas and going down to the corner shop to buy a carton of ice cream. How late were corner shops open in Moscow? Miss Honey was about to find out the hard way.

At seven thirty-five the doorbell rang.

“Sorry I’m late,” Viktor said breathlessly. “Forgot I had to tail my dad and Matilda to the restaurant. Oh, you look gorgeous.”

Miss Honey had never, ever, ever in her life had anyone tell her she looked gorgeous.

* * *

Thankfully Viktor had made a reservation, because Miss Honey, obviously, had no idea where to eat in Moscow. The restaurant was wonderful, all old-school rustic Russian charm that was probably designed to rope in tourists, but Miss Honey didn’t care. Dinner was wonderful. The food was wonderful. Viktor, especially, was wonderful.

Viktor dropped her off at the apartment door and kissed her goodnight. His body was warm and hard, his mouth warm and soft. That was also wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that Miss Honey found herself mortified afterward by how wonderful she thought it was.

Ten minutes after he departed, while Miss Honey was dancing around Matilda’s new living room in her stocking feet, Matilda burst in. “How was your DATE!”

Miss Honey hesitated, then admitted, “It was _wonderful_.”

A massive smile bloomed on Matilda’s face. Suddenly she looked nothing like the twenty-year-old conflict resolving prodigy she had become; she looked five years old again, like Miss Honey had just offered to adopt her, like someone had put her down in front of the local library and told her to run free. She streaked across the room and flung her arms around Miss Honey. “I am _so pleased_ ,” Matilda said into Miss Honey’s neck. “My dinner with Sergei was wonderful, too. He has so many interesting projects for me to work on! He says I can spend the next week in training and then the week after that he’s going to send me to Beijing! I can’t wait to get started!”

And Miss Honey, her limbs light, her stomach and heart so full of love and joy and worry she could hardly stand it, hugged her back.


End file.
